Eliza Outtrim

10/30/2013 06:38PM
● By Grant Johnson

Photo copyright Steven Kornreich

Steamboat Springs, CO -

Q. What are some of your favorite runs in Steamboat?A. Of course, Voodoo. It’s home to
the mogul course that I have trained on for the past 10 years. I remember being
a senior in high school (my first year in Steamboat) and training underneath
bluebird skies every day and thinking, “This is paradise.” On a powder day, I
love skiing the Chutes.

Q. Do you have a signature article of clothing you wear when competing?A. Columbia provides us with our
outerwear and base layers, so I’m always outfitted in that, but I don’t have a
pair of socks or underwear that I wear every time – I’m not superstitious like
that.

Q. How do you like to relax?A. When the season is over I usually
like to relax by going to the beach somewhere. For years I went to Florida in
the spring to spend time with family and get my beach kick. I also was lucky
enough to visit Hawaii last spring with a group of friends. Last spring,
however, I simply didn’t want to travel anywhere. I wanted to stay home. And
that’s exactly what I did. I stayed in Colorado and skinned up the mountain a
ton in April and got a lot of great spring skiing in, followed by a lot of
great biking in May. I love sports in general so I spend a lot time doing them
outside of skiing. Being that golf is less physical, I love walking nine holes
in the evening during the summer, after a day of training. I get that from my
mother who always makes time to get out and walk nine holes, no matter how busy
her day is. At home I like to relax by making good meals, watching a movie,
reading a book, and/or listening to a TED talk. And, of course, who doesn’t
love hitting up Freshie’s or Winona’s for breakfast on a free morning?

Q. Do you have any superstitions?A. Nope. I would never want to think
my skiing is based on anything other than training and hard work and holding
myself accountable for my own results, good or bad. Nothing against
superstitions, I just don’t have them.

Q. When did you realize you wanted to make a career out of
skiing?A. Not until I was older. I watched
the Olympics when I was a kid and I thought it was cool, but I didn’t think “I
want to go to the Olympics.” The only thing I thought was, “I want to ski.” And
the older I got, that thought grew into thinking about the Olympics.

Q. What’s your favorite career moment so far?A. The 2013 Deer Valley World Cup.
While it was not my best result of the season (I finished third.), it was the
most memorable. First, my entire family (I’m the youngest of four.) was there
to watch. Second, I swept the podium with teammates Hannah Kearney and Heather
Mcphie, which was the second podium sweep in World Cup history for U.S. women.
And lastly, getting a podium at the best World Cup venue in the world was an
incredible feeling. I laid down three great runs on a difficult course to get
that podium and I felt it really represented all the training I had done to get
there – physical, skillful and mental.

Q. If you weren’t a professional athlete, what would you want
to be?A. A professional athlete.

Q. Were you always athletic? A. My whole life I have been
athletic. When I was a little girl, my dad used to take me out on the tennis
court with a blue bucket full of tennis balls and bribe me with ice cream cones
to see how many balls we could hit back and forth. I fully blame him for my
current love of soft-serve ice cream. Both my parents were always playing
tennis and golf and, of course, in the winter every Friday we drove the 2 hours
and 45 minutes to Mount Snow, Vermont, to ski. I was a lucky kid. My mother
used to take me to swim lessons in the winter. To her, it was a safety issue
that I be a good swimmer. I did everything from gymnastics to soccer, tennis,
golf, and even basketball in middle school. The tennis and golf are the two
biggest that stuck with me in my adult life. I love them. Ever since I moved
west to Colorado to go to Lowell Whiteman for my senior year of high school,
the sports have only increased. Mountain life has introduced me to mountain
biking, road biking and hiking; three things I did not grow up with back East.
Sports will always be a part of my life. There is nothing I love more.

Q. How do you train during the summer?A. For the past two summers I have
been training in Park City. I train three days a week on the water ramps where
we practice our jumps into a pool, and six days a week in the gym, sometimes
twice a day. Our workouts consist of strength, core, track and biking. We also
do things like take plunges into 50-degree ice baths for recovery. I have grown
to love being in the gym, ice bath included. Our on-snow camps begin in late
July.

Q. What’s your favorite Smartphone app?A. I’m not sure I have a favorite,
but I have a few that I use a lot – the Weather Channel app, because I spend a
lot of time outside; the Facebook app to keep up with friends and family; and
the CNN app so my brain doesn’t go to mush.

Q. Do you prefer small towns or big cities?A. I prefer small towns with access
to big cities, but not too small of a town. I love Steamboat, but that’s as
small as it gets for me.

Q. Where did you go to college?A. I went to Colorado College and
majored in economics. I graduated in December 2010. It took me a mere seven
years, because I was competing the whole time, but I’m glad to have a great
education under my belt.